Scott Webb (Host): Welcome to UK HealthCast, a podcast presented by UK HealthCare. I'm Scott Webb. And today, in part two of our series with radiation oncologist and Associate Professor, Dr. Weisi Yan, we're discussing UK HealthCare's Lung Cancer Forum. Doctor, welcome back to the podcast.

Weisi Yan, MD, PhD: Hello, Scott. How are you? It's great to be back.

Host: I'm doing fine. It's great to see you again. And I know you and the entire Markey team are excited about the upcoming Markey Cancer Center Affiliate Network Cancer Care Conference, which is a mouthful, and the Lung Cancer Forum contained therein. So, tell listeners about the conference and the forum.

Weisi Yan, MD, PhD: The conference is actually very comprehensive. The lung symposium is only part of it, right? They're just having a half-day event. Later down the road, they may have more time for the lung cancer thing. But the reason is lung is actually-- if you combine, lung is the biggest one. And then, the three things are lung, breast, and prostate. But male and female are going to get lung cancer. So, a lot of stuff are centered on lung.

But for Kentucky, number one is a screening, right? You try to catch them before they start. And then, it'll be the mortality trend. How many people are getting that? How many people are dying? And then, it comes with diagnosis about genetics, genomics, how do you diagnose. And of course, there are treatments. There are, for example, how do you use drugs, antibodies, and how do you use radiation, and how do you use surgery. And of course, how do we give you the delivered care? How do you change the community dynamics that have the marking wise, how do you engage that patient screen, right? It just seems to be common sense, but sometimes common sense is not common. And how to deliver them is the key. Because if you know something, you don't do it, it's pretty much useless. And all the things are packed together.

The good part is, I think, the university president will be here. So, that shows the emphasis of how important this is. Giving a symposium or conference like that, not only exposes all the healthcare people to the latest events, technologies, foster great environment, but also shows that we care. If we do good screening, we don't want to radiate everybody. We really hope that you don't get cancer. So, all the things, we have to be aware and also give you the latest guidelines and then we can influence the community. So, this is not only for the health industry, but pretty much for everybody. And also, the lung thing will be one more about innovation and impact. We are going to talk about surgery, radiation, immunotherapy, especially what to use when you've got certain stage of lung cancer. What are the pros and cons for surgery? What are the pros and cons for radiation? What's the expectation? And that can give you more interesting things for primary care physicians, nurses, or even navigators. So when they know more, it can help people better. Information is power and knowledge is power. So, I think it's good for the whole community. I think it definitely can improve the quality of life for the Kentucky people.

Host: Yeah. We talked about last time, we talked about how education is outfront for you folks at UK HealthCare and how important that is, both for patients, families, but also other providers, right?

Weisi Yan, MD, PhD: Absolutely. For example, sometimes we have a live case, when you have some early stage people and they're offered for surgery or radiation, nine out of 10 or seven out of 10 will say, "Nah, I don't want surgery. I want to spend time with my grandchildren. It is too much," blah, blah, blah. For certain people, that may be true. But for healthy people, you have a better chance to be alive if you do surgery and radiation in the long run. So, you are treating your life expectancy with quality of life. And that's something that, if people don't know, it doesn't come from radiation oncology, you might have a totally different decision-making process. Just give you one example, even for later down the road, when do you give immunotherapy? And there any new drugs? And how do you cope with that? How do you deal with toxicities? These are all the things that if you don't speak and sit down together, it's hard. Even for us, we're learning every day. There's changes in surgery, changes even in immunotherapy, changes with what kind of jobs for second generation. So, all the things are highly educational, and it's very inspirational for the whole care community.

Host: It's such a perfect word-- inspirational, of course. Wondering, Doctor, like what does an event like this do for patients? Like from the outside looking in as I am as a lay person, it might be difficult to see how things like this could improve outcomes. But we know making connections between physicians could play a big role in patient care, right?

Weisi Yan, MD, PhD: Absolutely. If, for example, the drug therapy is somehow generic, you're probably going to get the same chemotherapy and immunotherapy if you are in rural practice or here. The difference is the multidisciplinary decision-making. So, when do you give what? That's a big question mark. And that's, of course, better here. And also, for the surgeons, there's a huge difference in the people who operate on lung 20 times a year versus 200 times a year. Even if you're doing the same thing, like if you are a carpenter making the same chair, there's difference. Not everybody's a good carpenter. Same thing with medicine. Don't take for granted, all the physicians are the same. And it's really hard to find out yourself unless you got exposed and you become like a learned buyer. Just like you're buying a secondhand car, right? You ask no question, you know nothing about it. You are going to be an easy victim sometimes. If you know the trade really well, at least we cannot fool you. And again, there are physicians and all physicians that are trained or practicing the same, I can tell you that. So, if you or your friends have cancer, it's better to be self-educated and make educated decisions.

Host: Yeah. We talked last time, I love your analogies by the way, and one of the things we talked about was just if you're going to have steak, go to a great steak restaurant, right? Don't go to a fast food place. In that, along those lines, anyway, I feel the same way about the folks at UK HealthCare and the experts like yourself there. Like, you know, don't take anyone's word for it. Come to something like this. Listen to something like this. Listen to these podcasts. Watch these podcasts, and really benefit and learn from the experts and really educate yourself, right?

Weisi Yan, MD, PhD: This year at ASCO, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the President of the Alphabet company, who's the stakeholder of Google. She came and she's like, "Well, I see a great trend with the AI and also with the guidelines that there's are going to be a decentralization for medical care." Everybody can type in ChatGPT, "Okay. This is stage III lung. What's it going to tell me?" And you probably look at really up to the things from the AI and same guidelines. And it came to once you have learned how do you have the best outcome, that takes decision-making. Because again, not all physicians are the same. So, that's become more challenging for us, because now you're going to be dealing with educated customers. Before they may be like, "Yeah, whatever you say, Doc." But now, "Wait a minute. ChatGPT said that." How do you even explain, right?

Host: Yeah. And of course at UK HealthCare, we're talking about a team of experts working together, shared decision-making between the experts and patients and families, right? Like, everybody's a part of the conversation.

Weisi Yan, MD, PhD: Absolutely. Absolutely. And here, we have multidisciplinary and then we're learning. We're a teaching institution. We have to teach the residents and we have exposed ourselves to the latest technologies findings all the times at least. We are there. And if sometimes like we say, "You got to go to the important place, we're going to refer you out." Because technically, we want the patient to benefit the most from what we can offer.

Host: Right. The best for patients and families.

Weisi Yan, MD, PhD: Absolutely.

Host: Yeah, it's been great having you on for both of our podcasts. I hope we get to speak again in the future. Appreciate your time, your expertise, your compassion, your analogies, all of it. Thank you so much.

Weisi Yan, MD, PhD: Thank you, Scott. Great pleasure. Thank you.

Host: Yeah. And for more information, you can go to ukhealthcare.com/markey. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please share it on your social channels. And don't forget to check out our entire podcast library for other topics of interest. This is UK HealthCast, a podcast from UK HealthCare. Thanks for listening.